Bayonne schools officials say state owes district $50 million

Jersey Journal file photoBayonne Superintendent of Schools Patricia McGeehan says the school district has been shortchanged $50 million over the past four years in state aid.

Claiming public school students in the Peninsula City have been shortchanged roughly $50 million in state aid over the past four years, Bayonne Board of Education officials have launched a public awareness campaign to appeal to legislators.

Board officials kicked off its "Bayonne Kids Count, Too!" campaign last week Wednesday with a public forum at Bayonne High School that drew more than 300 attendees.

"We have quite a needy population and it's quite challenging for us to meet their needs, and without having the backup and the (monetary) resources, it's very difficult," Superintendent of Schools Patricia McGeehan told The Jersey Journal.

According to McGeehan, Bayonne leads the pack of roughly 200 school districts in the state that are considered to be under-funded.

The funding beef revolves around the state's School Funding Reform Act enacted in 2008. The allocate funding the formula takes into account a number of variables, including student population, whether English is a student's first language, and their socio-economic status.

Since the formula was enacted, the Bayonne school district has received roughly $202 million in state aid -- $50.7 million less than what the district should have received, according to Danielle Farrie, research director for the Education Law Center, a non-profit legal advocacy group, based in Newark.

"Because that formula hasn't been funded in a number of years, Bayonne keeps falling behind in the amount of funding they receive," said Farrie, noting that in Hudson County, the North Bergen school district is in a similar bind. "The point is to put pressure on the governor and the legislators to fund the formula this year in the upcoming budget."

As part of the campaign for more cash, most of the districts 9,500 students will write letters to legislators to appeal for support as part of their English classes."Bayonne was $42.6 million under adequacy (last year)," said Sharon Krengel, a policy and outreach coordinator at the Education Law Center who addressed Bayonne residents at last week's forum. "That equates to about $4,700 per student."

Due to the shortage, sports like volleyball and softball, and after-school computer and tutoring programs have been eliminated, according to McGeehan, who added that staffing has also been cut back, and class sizes have increased district-wide.A spokesman for the state Department of Education acknowledged that Bayonne's state aid allocation has been less than ideal, but so have several hundred other districts due to the challenging state economy.

"In the best of worlds, we would fully fund the formula," DOE spokesman Richard Vespucci said. "But the reality is that these are very harsh economic times, with many cutbacks in many areas."

Vespucci pointed out that all New Jersey's school districts actually received and increase in state funding this year.

Bayonne received an increase of roughly $2.28 million in state funding over last year, he noted.

Whether Gov. Christie will fund the formula next year, won't be known until the state budget address in late February, and there are too many variables to calculate how much funding is at stake, state officials said.